After Argentina

  Rush the plane and land in the middle

  of the many doing what they’ve done

  while you’ve been away.

  Mothers rush me like cold showers,

  setting me up on more dates than

  casual weekdays.

  Stops by the giros, dollops of frozen

  yogurt and the salty pop of movie theater corn.

  Miniature golf, knocking the ball

  into the streams and wilds.

  The man who admired his own words

  like women admire fast cars.

  A new face daily, all eager for something

  sweet and dependent, like a rose

  devoid of thorns, a puppy frantic

  for affection. Independence

  breeds independence it seems.

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  The first summer back

  was one of celebration—

  big white weddings and fairy lights,

  strung above my head like a taunt, dare.

  Pictures I struggled to smile through.

  Give me the dirt roads of rural Buenos Aires.

  Give me the chickens and rough-and-tumble children.

  Give me the street dogs and gust of golden wrappers.

  Dame la vida sencillo, far from the happiness I watched like movies.

  Ship building

  Noah’s ark was a lonely affair.

  Just the man and his boards, splinters

  and hammers no one else would lift.

  Not building with confidence,

  but faith, stubborn faith that nailed the ocean

  coffin and set it swirling into the wails of wild sea,

  hoping to reach a new world,

  fearing to find the old one.

  New people, not the old.

  And, yes, I could have lingered

  with the natives and tried to read

  the clear skies as hope,

  but the emptiness drove me to

  blueprints and plans,

  future places and people to fill them.

  The one I seek is on the sea,

  sailing the same waves as me.